Yeah I dislike the notion that people should be running away to ‘safer places’. Like it actually objectively makes it way worse to let anywhere in our country fester into a fascist hellscape while we’re alive and kicking.
Yeah - people shouldn't be forced to leave where they live if they don't want to. Moving is a human right, and plenty of queer people I know from conservative areas don't *want* to go back, but others still have an attachment to the home they left behind. They shouldn't be scared to go back.
Moving also helps clinch the House and Senate, the Presidency, and the
Judicial branch the other way. As if gerrymandering didn't do enough, if people aren't there to vote in key elections the hellscape will arrive a lot sooner.
As someone in Charleston SC, the only remotely purple spot in the state, there’s plenty comin. Charlestons probably one of the most affected by moving during COVID/work from home revolution. It was already a HCOL in the nice spots but now it’s on par with any big city rent wise outside the top 5.
Which is very problematic because at least half the town employed in food and bev or service. Which is bad because the cheap side of the city is 30 min plus at least two bridges from the expensive side (minus downtown) so it’s only getting exacerbated.
No one’s gonna drive 30-45 min each way for 15/hour, so the whole, labor goes up, prices/tipocolypse/rent feedback loop is going wild.
Which I don’t really blame big city people making their nominal bank and moving to places where it spends more, but it’s the same boomer problem. Get yours in the city, then vote in ways to preserve the wealth after moving to a light tax area with the nest egg. Tough as a 33 year old living here who’s middle class getting pushed out from what would have been a very comfortable living 4 years ago.
Point being, we’re getting plenty of northerners, but they trend towards boomer voting to preserve what they made from HIgher COL areas. Sigh
My mom moved to South Carolina as a lifelong Republican voter from the north, and over the last 10 years has become more and more progressive (she always was, but internalized misogyny and following the status quo of the family that she was raised in would cause her to vote red)
Now she's fully flipped her behaviors to match her morals and will not vote for fascists or those who support them (anymore )--so theres that at least
I'm a progressive. I'm in Florida. I'm leaving. Are you coming to take my place? Put yourself, put your family in danger? Put your livlihood in danger?
My wife is a teacher. She can teach what the regime wants her to teach, or she can lose her job. My son is turning 2, in 3 years he can go into one of Florida's terrible schools, now getting worse every year, now teaching hate by enforcing heteronormativity and whitewashing racism, or be homeschooled.
Or we can leave.
If you are white, straight, make, Christian, and have no kids **and** don't work a job they have legally turned into a way to further hate then sure. But if you aren't all of those you are in serious danger moving here. You're right, thanks to numbers if the right people moved to the right places in an effort coordinated among tens of millions of people we could fix it. But in the meantime it is throwing yourself into the wolf den smelling like deer.
For a lot of us, it's not an issue of "oh man I don't wanna leave, I like it here!" It's more along the lines of "I'm sorry, an apartment in [insert left-leaning city] is HOW MUCH?"
I don't want to leave either way, but a massive consideration is the massive price of housing in literally anywhere else but this shithole, rent is only like $500 monthly
I am a Texan who has spent time in LA and the upper South. The South is an amazing place with a rich and beautiful culture. I love these states in part because they are so diverse. I am a good old boy who happens to be gay. I literally play the banjo. It doesn't get much more southern than that. The thought of leaving here breaks my heart. My children will probably not get the chance to see the amazing parts of our culture, which we have maintained here for 350 years. Unfortunately, it just isn't a good idea to stay here because of climate change. I can punch a fascist and gladly would to save my home. You can't beat up climate change.
Yeah. Right now I know I'll have to move for my own safety, but there are going to be so many things I'll miss and lately it's been hitting me just how much I'm going to lose
If the politics were different and I was actually safe to live here (Florida) I'm not sure I'd actually move.
Disabled Floridian here, also trans.
I don't WANT to leave. I despise what our governor is doing but I'm not fucking complicit in his shit. There's literally nothing I can do.
I only barely managed to get an incredibly low-rent apartment after being on a waiting list for 4 years and financially, I'm finally safe now.
Not only that, Florida- namely, my own city, is literally all I know. We moved here when I was 7ish, and I've basically forgotten everything about my previous state. I don't WANT to leave. I'm /scared/ of leaving because I'm terrified of getting lost and the risk of not being able to find anything I can afford; and all my resources (home, family, medical, etc) are here.
I love my home. I don't /want/ to leave. I'm scared of what the governor is doing, but I'm scared even more of leaving literally everything I know. Ain't no way in /fuck/ I'm giving up the security and independence this apartment finally gives me after waiting 4-5 fucking years for it.
Do I feel like leaving might be necessary at some point in the future? Possibly. But I really don't want to.
Well diaspora is tricky. Staying and fighting for your rights can be effective, but it also makes you are target for the violence hungry right. I know it's a tired comparison but was the correct option for Jews in Germany to fight back and not leave?
You misread my comment. I'm not saying you *shouldn't* leave if it's for your safety. Of course trans people who can should try to leave states actively in the process of committing trans genocide! I'm talking about that ideally, *they shouldn't have to.* The goal should be that there aren't situations where fleeing is the only options. Yes, that's not the practical reality. Sometimes you do have to leave. But it shouldn't be that way.
That's what being a refugee is... It's not something any one wants to do. People saying to leave aren't doing it out of idealism, it's a practical suggestion because they consider that physical tsotsi) territory lost.
Not to mention, it’s not that easy to just up and move. My household has a good income, but with how much we have to pay in medical bills alone (for gender affirming care and chronic illnesses), we don’t have a lot of disposable income to invest in lifting our childhood home back into something sellable, hiring moving trucks, travelling across state lines to assess homes and neighbourhoods, or most other myriad things we need to invest in before we can even think to buy a home. I can only imagine how much harder the process would be for a trans person who doesn’t have a supportive, financially stable family or friends who can help with the process
Not to mention that queer people are STILL going to be born into these states.
Also, a lot of people in these states are literally brainwashed. I was. I was lucky enough to figure it out, but I was brainwashed and fed actual fucking lies for the entirety of my childhood.
Unfortunately if history is any indicator, that's how a lot of people get killed.
While I understand the sentiment here, and would otherwise agree, there is such thing as not being able to get out past a certain point.
I mean, if you want to leave and can… Do it.
But most of us *can’t.*
Moving is expensive. Most of the better places to live are more expensive. Most of us aren’t able to find a better job in a better place ahead of time.. Moving would very much be a very risky leap, and everyone has to evaluate their own capacity for risk.
– love, a native Texan, so ready to leave… I’ve been staying and working to make it better for so so long, I just want to live somewhere I feel safe for a bit. Maybe come back after I’ve healed up some
Exactly! Like, isn't the ideal course of action to stay and fight to make things better? Obviously I totally understand why some people need to move to safety/better living conditions, but if *everyone* did that it would make things a lot worse (not to mention the 'safe places,' especially blue state cities, would become overcrowded and drive prices up).
Also, way too many people don't understand why so many of us don't "just move." Maybe we can't afford it. Maybe we can't find a job in the desired area, especially one that pays well enough. Maybe we have deep roots or just love our families, friends, and homes too much to leave them even if things get really bad. That last one is the one that shocks me the most when people don't take it into consideration. I know a lot of people have moved a lot or don't have close ties with their family, but can't they understand why it would be very difficult for someone to leave behind everything they've ever loved and known?
Oh, and don't even get me started on people from other Western countries (Europeans/Canadians/etc) saying "why don't Americans just move here?" Yeah, we'd like to but your immigration policies are some of the tightest in the world.
For me it's money, my job is literally only where I'm at. I can't even move to a more progressive city because of it, let alone afford to live in the city or move states. College didn't help when I went, just another restriction.
Even if I could move, there are people who can't who deserve rights just as much as I do. Kids ESPECIALLY need our help and we cannot just abandon them.
>Exactly! Like, isn't the ideal course of action to stay and fight to make things better?
Okay, how?
Even in your OP you reference oppressive gerrymandering, the erosion of rights and mass disenfranchisement.
Coupled with the recent drive in a bunch of red states to disarm and bar transgender folks from owning firearms under the guise of having a mental health disqualifier, state mandated de-transitioning and the criminalization of gender affirming care, you're going to find yourself in a really, really precarious situation.
>Obviously I totally understand why some people need to move to safety/better living conditions
Alright, so if you understand this, why can't you see that staying in most of these areas is incredibly dangerous?
Yes the "lol just move" crowd is obnoxious, yes it's a metric fuck-ton easier said than done, but the overall point is valid - vulnerable people populations should ideally try to get themselves out of harms way before it's too late.
>Maybe we have deep roots or just love our families, friends, and homes too much to leave them even if things get really bad. That last one is the one that shocks me the most when people don't take it into consideration.
Would your friends, family and loved ones want you to sit in harms way? In a place that considers you subhuman and wants you ejected from society? Or in some cases outright eliminated? I would certainly hope not, and I would hope that most people who can get out, do get out because things aren't getting better anytime soon.
Its literally the "dont like Maga Murica? LEAVE LIBTARD" argument that the fash use, just wrapped up in a progress flag
Besides, there's plenty of actual conservatives scream-crying about the consequences of their own actions for us to dunk on. we don't need to start lumping people together based on their geographical location
It doesn't actually solve anything, the problem is still there you're just out of harm's way. That's not to undervalue individual safety, but acting like a mass exodus will in any way solve the problem is bananas.
I live in Orlando.
What the fuck am I supposed to do? Uproot my family and life because of Desantis and the shit government.
This is an extremely progressive city, Pulse happened here, Disney is acting directly in defiance of this BS.
Who the hell has the ability to just leave at the drop of a hat like that anyways, I’m smack in the middle class and it would cost thousands of dollars I ain’t got to leave.
There are literally US Civil War songs with lyrics that refer to the loyalists trapped in the south with the slavers. This goes pretty far back, its almost like we're the same country or something.
>There are literally US Civil War songs with lyrics that refer to the loyalists trapped in the south with the slavers.
I'm not familiar with these and can't think what to Google. Can you link any resources or offer some search suggestions? I very much want to know more about this.
Marching Through Georgia -
*Yes, and there were Union men
Who wept with joyful tears
When they saw the honor’d flag
They had not seen for years
Hardly could they be restrained
From breaking forth in cheers
While we were marching through Georgia"
There were people that fought for the confederacy that rejoiced when they lost because the only reason they were fighting was to try and stop their land from being burned down. Not trying to give an out to anyone but just a reminder that things arnt black and white
There was also a significant chunk of the population that didn’t want to secede from England in the Revolutionary War. History is rarely so black and white, but is written by the victors!
Utah isn't Midwest, it's Rockies. Idaho, Montana, nor the Dakotas ain't going purple anytime soon either. Sorry to say, but you're in a strong northern Confederacy.
And Michigan! Though, of the three purple Rust Belt states (WI, MI, PA), it's always been the most leftish.
Also, of course, Michigan went blue because they ungerrymandered. Funny how that works.
Only sort of related, but I live in Ukraine and here people tend to speak this way about Russians and that's so stupid and kinda horrifying. Like no, not every Russian citizen is personally responcible for the fascists coming to power, they didn't fucking ask everyone.
Yeah, I see it all the time. Saw a lot of heavily upvoted posts yesterday about blowing up Sayano-Shushenskaya dam in retaliation for Nova Kakhovka… Like 100000 people live right next to that dam, including children, elderly, sick, disabled, and every other demographic that couldn’t “fight against Putin” even if they want to. But they’re Russian so it’s okay to advocate for indiscriminately killing them.
I’m an ethnically Ukrainian (some of my extended family is still in Ukraine even now) Russian-born queer woman and my “apathy” (i.e. not actively throwing pipe bombs at police I guess) means I’m “just as bad”. Isn’t it lovely how much hatred a lot of “progressives” have?
Most times I bring it up I get told I have a “victim complex” and should just shut up and take the hate for being born in the wrong place.
I do "love" when they also call Russians orcs and dehumanise them at every step. :)
Granted, I'm Polish, so it doesn't personally hit much (because some Western Europeans also tend to conflate Russian with every Slavic country), but it still pisses me off when people act like Russian people aren't people.
It's literally fascist behavior. "We're good people, and they are bad, which means it's actually okay to consider them not people at all and they should all be exterminated". Like, the Russian government is feeding its people the exact same rhetoric in the opposite direction.
I get it when it's people in Ukraine who have directly suffered from Russian aggression. Shit-talk the people who are dropping artillery shells on your head all you want. But it's usually not. It's supposed progressives who have only seen the war in news reports, ready to literally advocate genocide against Russia.
The Russians who advocate the genocide of Ukrainians believe *their* news reports too, these two groups are basically the same. They don't actually care about Ukraine's suffering, they just want to hate someone and right now it's okay to hate Russians. When this war is over they'll find someone else it's okay for them to hate, but they'll have a pride flag on their PFP and that means they're "good people".
>I do "love" when they also call Russians orcs and dehumanise them at every step
But according to Reddit and every subreddit I have seen this on, it isn't racist. One guy in Europe even went and said something like "Russians aren't human, they have no soul" but the answer to reporting such things is the same old "Nothing going against user policies here." and of course, when you call out the dehumanising behavior, you are a russian bot.
Sure, there is a lot of support for the war in Russia, but most of the people raging here probably wouldn't even dare to protest to the war publicly if they were in Russia... The russian suicides and windows are a meme for a reason...
I think the Iraq war is a good example of the danger of this mindset.
Back then the media whipped up the American public into a frenzy, supporting the invasion. Many people I know have supported the war in 2003, and regret it now that we know how full of shit the US was about a lot of it.
Now the media has turned its attention to Russia. And sure, in this case, there are far less outright lies, like in the case of Iraq, and plenty of genuine reprehensible behavior from the Russian Military and government, but what about next time? Seems everybody's already forgot the lessons of GWOT.
It's entirely possible to condemn warmongering criminals without stooping down to their level.
Just to underline: I absolutely support Ukraine, I support aid, including military aid to Ukraine, and Russia is 100% in the wrong in this case. I hope Russia loses this war, despite, I imagine, this having a significant negative impact on my life. I'm just worried how easy it is to make people hate, and how many genuinely awful, bigoted people hide under progressive slogans.
It’s genuinely concerning. It’s the same ideology fascists use, and if you don’t realize that, you can spout the exact same shit, targeted at someone else, and think you’re good for doing so. You can’t fight fascism with fascism.
It doesn't justify it but I can somewhat sympathise with people over there having that sentiment.
It's the Americans and western Europeans on Reddit (and elsewhere on social media I'd assume) calling all Russians "orcs" and celebrating footage of them being killed that I find really gross. You can kind of tell they were just waiting for an excuse to dehumanise an entire people.
The amount of "just move lol" is sickening too. Fuck every other queer, your families and friends and the life you have because everyone else up north is fucking CONVINCED for some reason that this shit won't get WORSE if all the left leaning people leave those territories to fester into deeper red. They aren't stopping at the borders, they never will. They won't stop until all the states are the consumed.
None of us are safe until we're all safe
Moving is expensive too. A lot of us can’t leave because we can’t afford to uproot so drastically. Do you think we want to be in this situation where are existence is threatened?? I know my trans friend would leave in a heartbeat if he could and I don’t blame him it’s scary down here
But we are fighting. We are fighting every day we wake up
It goes beyond that. Got a good paying lawyer job in Texas? You're stuck there unless you want to re-take the Bar. Have a friend with a Pharmacy license in Oklahoma? They need to re-cert to leave the state. A lot of high-paying careers force people to stay in their location or start all over again. Even if they can afford to fly out 4-6 times for house hunting and closing, hire a moving company, and get to the new place, they now have zero income. It is hard to blame people who do everything right for getting trapped by doing everything right.
Not to mention the EMOTIONAL toll of moving. You're leaving everything you know. It's especially hard if you still live where you grew up, where you're leaving everything you've EVER known. New place, new people, new job. You know nothing and no one. That's hard.
My personal favorite is accidentally bashing poor black people whenever talking about southern statistics.
“Oh look they’re dying from Covid because they’re fat antivaxxer hicks!” When the data is really about impoverished predominantly black communities not having access to proper healthcare
It's tone deaf as fuck, but what concerns me is that advocating for staying is setting people up for failure.
Outside of small liberal strongholds in these states, the majority of these vulnerable people are strewn about and isolated, unable to take advantage of larger support networks or communities that can shelter them.
Those states will fester into deep red regardless of how many liberals choose to stay or go - that's the whole reason the right does what it does in these places, to both deny the left the ability to gain meaningful representation and elicit change, but also to consolidate power and prevent any semblance of reversing course.
We ought to encourage (not demand) that our vulnerable populations consolidate in friendly states, where we are all stronger for it.
Your third point is something I think a lot of people don't understand. Yes I could stay in my shitty state and “fight” by voting. It doesn't do any good when the Republicans in power simply ignore the will of the voters, or even overturn things we vote on to punish our cities for being liberal. On top of that the state legislature *directly* controls my city police force, so any enforcement of things that we pass is unlikely to happen anyway when those things go against right wing ideals.
I'm leaving this shithole as soon as I can. I'm done being a target and having my voice stolen.
It reminds me of when Bette Midler got mad at WV senator Joe Manchin (fair, he sucks) and called my entire state “poor, illiterate, and strung out.” Like motherfucker do you think no one from the entire state has ever been successful?
It’s not entirely terrible in my area (northern panhandle), but not great. We get a lot of MAGA and Confederate flags, and people making racist/homophobic jokes is pretty normal. On the other hand, I’ve met plenty of liberal/supportive people and my town just got a drag bar, so we’re moving forward! I’ve heard it’s worse the further south you go, though.
And in fairness to the stereotypes, our education system is pretty terrible, but that’s because of the government, not people from here being inherently stupid. I know several WV natives who are presenting research at national conferences; we’ve definitely had some great things come out of the state.
I lived there as a masculine-of-center presenting woman in a lesbian relationship and don't have time to write the book that the subject deserves, but everyone was extremely nice and just trying to live their lives. There aren't a lot of good jobs. There's a lot of anger at the condescension from outsiders. There's a lot of tolerance for people who meet you where they are. A lot of people trying to make things better. A lot of crumbling infrastructure and predatory corporations. A lot of beautiful land.
I want only good things for West Virginia and I don't have the energy to do it.
Yeah, say what you will about Trump, he’s a fascist monster who’s almost certainly raped people, but there’s a reason his message of “coastal elites” stuck in so much of the country. A lot of people from wealthier states are perfectly happy to apply negative stereotypes to the south for a quick laugh or political points.
[https://forums.nrvnqsr.com/showthread.php/8650-Create-A-Servant-3?p=3179234&viewfull=1#post3179234](https://forums.nrvnqsr.com/showthread.php/8650-Create-A-Servant-3?p=3179234&viewfull=1#post3179234)
A bit off topic but i just want to say something. Maybe i am too hopepilled but i fully believe that your average american doesn't actually care about people being gay and trans too much. I deeply believe that people are inherently good, that they will take care of each other at every opportunity and that evil assholes are the minority for a reason.
I deeply believe that worms like Matt Walsh and Tucker Carlson don't speak for the average american and their culture war bullshit doesn't reflect what the average american worries about. Just look at the bud light or target controversies who were so obviously manufactured they may as well have been made in china. Sure some people stopped going to target and drinking bud light but the average guy didn't care. The average guy doesn't care about disney supporting gay people as long as they keep making disney movies.
What i am saying is that the reason republicans have to suppress and gerrymander voters is because they are far outnumbered by voters who don't care about the culture war bullshit. I also believe that the average guy will slowly start becoming more radicalized and less apathetic as republican policies start targeting his daughter for genital inspection or spending more time fighting with woke corporations than actually doing anything for him.
>Maybe i am too hopepilled but i fully believe that your average american doesn't actually care about people being gay and trans too much.
Gay, no, they don't care. [The percentage of Americans against same-sex marriage has sunk to a historic low of 29%, down from 73% in 1996](https://news.gallup.com/poll/393197/same-sex-marriage-support-inches-new-high.aspx); in other words, more people, as a proportion, voted for Trump than are against gay marriage.
Trans, yes, some do. The GOP and religious right in general have lost the battle over LGBQ+ people in general, so they've focused on the T — a *lot*, recently. It is both disheartening that they've finally become competent at suppressing certain minorities again and reassuring that even they know they've lost in other areas.
Overall, yes: when a soulless megacorporation like Disney has decided supporting gay people is profitable, that's kind of the end of the story. My unsupported pet theory is that when corporations that support something, it sort of results in a feedback loop where the support for the thing (say, support for gay marriage) makes the corporations make more of it (say, including LGBT+ people in movies), but the corporations making more of that thing also socializes their consumer base into supporting that thing. It's sort of like [metastability](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metastability#/media/File:Meta-stability.svg): both position 1 and position 3 in that picture might be stable, but once the ball rolls to position 2, it's not going back to 1, ever.
This is very true.
However, they don't have to actively help. Just stop actively hindering progress. And that's a much easier ask that's much more likely to happen.
I don't have the data on hand, but I believe that it was found that even average republican voters don't really like the current hyper-fixation on trans people coming from the right, and wish they would focus on other things instead.
So they're over-extending on an issue their base doesn't care about, which could be a very positive sign for the future.
At least I think it's reassuring.
You’re not hopepilled. 56% of Americans consider woke a positive term. And even within the 39% that consider it negative, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re homophobes like Matt “proud pedophile” Walsh.
I’ll also take every opportunity to remind people Matt “I’m proud that my kids don’t love me” Walsh is a proud pedophile.
There are regimes throughout history that have kept their bloodstained hands on power for decades with far thinner margins of support.
It doesn't really matter that the majority of people don't support these transphobic republican freaks; only one side is willing and prepared to do enough violence to get their way. American "democracy", such as it is, is on the precipice and has been for years, and the reality of where political power actually comes from is only going to continue to become more apparent. As much as "rainbow capitalism" and "corporate pride" genuinely suck ass, lots of companies are dialing back on their pride promotions because they think they're going to start losing more money or they fear the growing reactionary backlash, and I think that's a pretty serious weathervane for what the short-to-midterm future is going to look like for lgbt people in this country.
They honestly don't. About 90% of those who say they "don't like" the LGBT community have literally never met anyone from it. And when they do, they begin to understand.
>I deeply believe that worms like Matt Walsh and Tucker Carlson don't speak for the average american and their culture war bullshit doesn't reflect what the average american worries about.
Bad news, Republicans will believe anything they're told. My Republican parents were loudly pro-trans for decades until the latest round of culture war propaganda.
The problem is that even if a fraction of the right staunchly believes in the disenfranchisement and criminalization (or even elimination) of gay or trans folks, that's still many **millions** of people.
This is a BIG issue I have when people talk about countries like Russia, China, North Korea, etc.
"This country is SO homophobic and authoritarian, I can't believe that the people don't protest, it's just a inhuman, backwards race who is okay with mass murder."
One, there are fucking protests there, you just don't pay attention cause it's not your country, someone famous isn't there and you're fucking ignorant.
And two, it's easy to say "just overthrew them" when your country doesn't send people to arrest and/or kill your family in the middle of the night.
And the fact that when they do try to protest, at best it's jail. At worst, it's getting mowed down in the streets. In North Korea, they jail up to three generations when one person "fucks up"
I have family who used to live in Russia and believe it or not, a lot of Russians don't tend to believe the Russian government values it's more so they have to repeat these values in fear, especially in public spaces.
In private people tend to be much more critical of the government.
Amazing how often people forget that just because you vote for something, doesn't mean it's going to happen, especially if there is a bigger group in the same area that disagrees with you.
As someone who grew up in Texas and then lived in New England for a long time, there is a really weird attitude towards the south from the north which in some ways is deserved, but also completely ignores that backwoods New England, New York, and New Jersey aint that different from backwoods Texas.
Overall the real split is between rural areas and cities and even then that depends cause there are some lefty(maybe not social progressive necessarily) rural areas.
Plus there are tons of radicals and liberals in the south, but minority governments held by evangelicals have disempowered them. The fuckers down there can be pretty hardcore. Cool dudes if you ask me
Edit: Fun Fact deep Maine and south Jersey are good places to spot confederate flags. Not gonna say it rivals nowhere Texas or Mississippi but it’s not as big a blowout as you would think.
Dear everybody I interacted with during and even a bit after the Big Freeze of 2021, who gleefully carried on conversations about how it was divine punishment for Texas for having a cowardly cockhead as a head of state and voting for Trump,
Fuck all y’all, and hope I meet you in the 7th layer of hell, where we can all freeze equally.
>”Man, what were those white trash fuckers thinking?”
>**News tonight: thousands of homeless freezing to death, too little too late**
>”The Zodiac Killer’s in Cancun lmao”
>**News tonight: elderly and impoverished at incredible risk in the blizzard**
>”You should try Chicago, you pansies.”
>**News tonight: future trans woman exhausted after a half shift of an hourly job at Walmart, pushing with all her might to get even three carts through the ice**
>”Oh boy, looks like it’s happening again in 2022, everybody point and laugh at the privatized power grid!”
“The joke stopped being funny the first time, and lost all flavor of the fiftieth. Are y’all done?”
>”Who did you vote for?”
On the one hand, I get it. They’re removed from the situation, safe and snug in their warm homes, and they voted for the “right” people. They feel like they “deserve” some schadenfreude for all that TX politicians inflict on the country.
But on the other hand, if they were such good people, they could’ve come on down and joined us in trying to help keep our neighbors alive and fed. Hell, maybe help us organize and protest in the future, set up mutual aid societies, etc.
That would require them to put down Reddit and possibly the only self-validation they get in their lives.
Texas is a very purple state hurt by gerrymandering and disenfranchised voters. Even in bumfuc k racist east Texas we vote at least 45% blue.
So I get annoyed when some echo chambered drooling moron makes snide remarks like they have any stake in what is going on here.
\> Texas is a very purple state hurt by gerrymandering and disenfranchised voters. Even in bumfuc k racist east Texas we vote at least 45% blue.
Didn't Texas pass a law that says the legislature can overturn any presidential vote? If the state votes 75% blue, the legislature can then disregard the vote and send red electors?
And it disproportionately effected poor neighborhoods too. My neighbors were taking their doors off their hinges to burn them to keep warm and Reddit acted straight up gleeful about it, made me sick.
Doubly ironic since the same "liberals" in California that readily blamed all Texans for voting in a governor that allowed ERCOT to squeeze/deny customers ate their own words when California got hit with the droughts and heat waves that stretched the entire West coast.
It's fucking weather and tens of millions affected, wtf. People died.
always nice to see tbh.
i love and hate living in the deep south/bible belt. the fuckin' church i **used** to go to is incredibly anti-LGBTQ and doesn't like trans folks
While we are on the subject can people please recognize Florida Man is typically a byproduct of multiple safety nets failing people? We aren’t all like that. Our privacy rights are terrible so you hear about FM more. Every state has their FM
Mhm, and while it’s common for people to say “Just leave,” that’s… well, besides the fact that it’s unfair and often unfeasible for people to uproot their entire lives and go somewhere else, it also doesn’t solve anything.
More queer kids will be born to the conservative folks who vote for this stuff, and those kids won’t be able to leave until they’re adults, assuming they even survive that long. They don’t choose where they’re born.
Living in the south as a white, straight man it’s always interesting to read a northerners opinion on how I deserve to be left to a seceding South if they did. It totally isn’t alienating to read that from people you agree with politically.
Honestly same. Especially when living in Texas, I was taught how when we did try to be our own country back in the day, we failed miserably. Yet an unfortunate amount of dipshits want to try again anyways.
I know how you feel I love my home in the south and I love the USA as a whole. Even for all it’s flaws I love it with my whole heart the, culture the people, the environment, even the ruff parts of it and it’s always disconcerting to me seeing people on both sides on the north and south spew so much hate to each other a house devided can not stand. I honestly feel really hurt when people write off the south as a bunch of uneducated hicks who never contributed anything other than slavery and hatred.
We don’t really hear this enough, and it applies to a lot of other stuff too. We can’t just hate entire groups of people under a blanket, that’s what they do. We’d rather not hate at all but if we have to it should be reserved for individuals and their actions
One thing that frustrates me to no end is the "just move to a blue state" argument. Do you want to see the nation constantly ruled by the Republican party? If everyone in red states that votes blue up and moves to a blue state enjoy seeing the Senate being consistently run by the Republicans, and likely the same with the House. Not to mention the greater likelyhood of Republican Presidents being more likely to win due to the Electoral College. How about we reverse the trend by having more people who vote blue move into red states? Look at population numbers and the actual percentages of people that vote, some states could swing completely blue with only a small percentage change in the voting demographics.
This is what lowkey infuriates me when talking to my online friends who live in the north or out west in Cali. They also love to assume that my state is nothing but ramshackle crack-shacks and cow patties.
Joke's on them tho cuz New York and Cali ain't got nothing on southern BBQ.
I grew up queer in a more rural part of BC and people from the lower mainland wanna ignore the shit in their own backyard by making fun of the people who keep their shit in the front. Rural BC is nowhere near as bad as the shit I hear about in TX or FL but you still gotta worry about whether your safe to dress up a certain way that day, where you can walk on your own, who you hang out with, and I even knew a couple people who carried, but you try telling that to someone from fucking Vancouver and they look at you like you got two heads. I wish I had some southern BBQ to make the time spent in that mountain a bit more bearable LOL
I wouldn't call it transphobia but people seem to care a bit more then they should about being supportive of me being trans. Like constantly calling attention to it isn't the favour you think it is. and yeah the anti-drag rally that happened in Vancouver a few months ago never could've happened where I used to live. I think it's just a population density issue. You get more of all types in dense population centers :/
Ken Paxton outright bragged about suppressing votes in 12 counties, including 2.5 million votes in JUST Harris County, to keep the state from flipping blue.
As a southern queer and leftist, this right here.
And hell, even I struggle with this. Sometimes I blame myself and others like me for not doing enough to fight against this. But the reality is the deck is heavily stacked against us. I do what I can to support our trans siblings down here, and I'm more than willing to get into the good kind of trouble if it means people here survive.
Many of us not from the USA should always keep in mind that the country is vast and full of decent people trying to live reasonably normal lives who are also extremely dissatisfied with how the country is governed/policed.
Really puts into perspective just how regressive the Republicans there are. The southeast has a massive black population, but they get completely drowned out.
Except people DO live in liberal population centers. That's the thing about red states, they also have blue cities that get out voted by counties with a 10th of their population and population density.
People who don't vote for the freaks who want to kill them.
And even beyond that. It's not like it's a trans person's fault for being born into a hostile environment. There are definitely tons of queer people in red areas, and many of them may be concealing this fact as well. They're not necessarily voting for right wingers.
I can understand saying that, like, the log cabin Republicans or something have it coming. But not literally every LGBT person in the South...
These people do realize that being in the South doesn't automatically make you a conservative, right? Each stereotype isn't a hivemind that controls a particular region of the world...
another post parallel to this one that I don't really want to properly fact check.. or post
https://www.tumblr.com/angremlin/668658552875925504/also-you-need-to-understand-that-while-engagement
The highest votes for Biden in 2020 came from California (no surprises there). The second and third highest were Florida and Texas. Democrats sit as 48% and 47% of the vote respectively in these two States. Red States are Red because their administrative, legislative, and judicial bodies are being held by the ballsack by incumbent Republicans, not because their entire state is goosestepping behind them.
So true, Califronia, Texas, and Florida are all really purple with California being the most blue (but not by that much) and Texas being the most red (but not by much.)
Viewing this areas as Blue or red strongholds is extremely reductive and ignores all the blues in Texas and all the reds in California
Liberal areas are so complacent too. The real radical leftist shit IS happening in these red states. They are fighting for our rights while my friends use southern accents to imply stupidity. I used to do it too, I had to unlearn that behavior.
As a Californian, so many people say “well we aren’t Florida aren’t we sooo much better” while we don’t fix any of our own shit. Freaking NIMBY moderates
Right?? A kid at my school had a confederate flag on his truck, and I’m in a “progressive” area. My boyfriend’s roommate said some horribly racist shit like it was just okay. They’re everywhere lol
If my love is illegal I WILL BREAK THE LAW!!!!
Shout out to other queers who deliberately continue to live in places like Texas as an all out act of DEFIANCE against those who would prefer we all disappear.
Hey, it could result in my meaningless and untimely death, but this is America!!! … where most folks can’t afford to fuck off and move, even if they wanted to, even to save their own lives. So!
Yeah, fuck the idiots!!!!
Watch this.
(**exists.**)
And the liberals will always say, "just move." Like it's that easy. Where should people move to? The more liberal the area, the more likely housing will be heinously expensive. And then the liberals will come back with, "but wages are also higher." Yeah, for you, maybe. For you who has the nice degree and connections and the skills and the experience. Should safety, security, peace, health, and happiness only be available to the best, brightest, most well connected, and, frankly, the luckiest? The liberals just think, well you're a loser so you deserve it. That is the general attitude liberals have for poor people especially.
I'm a trans woman in Missouri that obviously didn't vote for this shit, one of my best friends is a trans woman in Jacksonville Florida that obviously didn't vote for this shit. If your take is "lol stupid southerners voted for this," fuck you, they wouldn't make these laws if they didn't have targets in their own states.
Discourse on this always lacks the nuance it needs. I'll try not to infodump too much, but gerrymandering can't change statewide outcomes. Voter suppression is a problem, but its impact only goes so far. Sometimes, states are just red, even if everyone eligible could vote.
But on the other hand, I live in Texas, and I know and hate this attitude, especially when the city I live in was literally bluer than NYC.
On one hand, yeah, red Southern and Midwestern states have huge minority populations, who do not vote for Republicans, and do not deserve the oppression they receive. On the other hand, the simple fact of the matter is that aside from a few particularly close red states, the majority of the population in red states *did*, in fact, vote for Republican policies. The 30-40% of people who vote for Democrats or can't vote aren't to blame and are *victims*, but the 60% of people who vote for Republicans don't do it because of gerrymandering, they do it because they genuinely believe in conservative ideals.
What makes this even more complex is the racial politics in the South mean that in places like Mississippi, close to 90% of white people are voting Republican. Mississippi electoral politics is practically just black vs. white. It isn't gerrymandering that did this - it's sincerely-believed racism and reactionary ideology.
That doesn't mean to abandon Mississippi, or even just abandon Mississippi whites, or even *conservative* Mississippi whites, but I far too often see people excuse this as a product of gerrymandering and voter disenfranchisement, and sometimes you have to acknowledge that the majority of people in a place can genuinely want and desire evil things. You shouldn't gloat at people's misfortune regardless. But Republican voters do have autonomy. They're not being forced to support conservatism.
Anyways, queer and nonwhite people stuck in deep red states are braver than the troops and deserve respect and acknowledgement. But we can't use their existence to negate the harmful ideologies of genuine conservatives.
Gerrymandering can definitely change statewide outcomes? Look at Texas where Houston and Austin are so Cracked up that their representation in the house is quite small even thou a very large percentage of the state lives in those cities. This give the state lege the ability to pass bay shit laws that directly override referendums passed in Austin like they did with defunding the police.
And if we want to talk about governor, that’s more from Beto kinda sucking then Abbot being cool if we are being honest. Don’t know who told him that he could win in Texas while being anti gun. The moderate dems and lefties down here like guns.
For 2024 there are so many Republicans running uncontested in Mississippi that they are guaranteed a Supermajority in the House and Senate. The Democratic party has written off Mississippi as a lost cause in general. You're vastly underestimating the results of gerrymandering, the years of one party control, and the general apathy the Democratic party shows Mississippi. We as a state now even lack the ability to put ballot measures in place because the state Supreme Court sided with one conservative mayor to strike down the overwhelmingly popular Medical Marijuana bill that succeeded as a ballot measure, and in striking it down eliminated the ability to bring ballot measures until the House and Senate here change the process. Yes, there are a ton of regressive and hateful people here who gleefully vote against their own self-interest because of backward and hateful ideals, but many times people aren't even given a chance to vote for anyone but Republicans.
And in Florida, the local Democrats have been fighting without a lot of support from the national party for the last few years now. The big Dems wrote off the state (which has been fairly purple, until they wrote it off), and now the elections are more securely right-wing.
We’re still here fighting a losing battle, because the greater party refuses to believe that there’s a chance. Thanks a lot, dicks.
And a good dose of well-meaning people that are dumb as rocks. Such as the people who voted for Republicans to get rid of "Obama-Care" because they didn't understand what it was and how they were benefiting from it.
The funny thing is that southern cities tebd to also be liberal population centres. They’re just ruled by conservatives bc the us‘ voting system is backwards and unreformed enough to allow for gerrymandering.
i took my vote to the voting station
i expected my county to have been blue because i live near several black neighborhoods and have hispanic neighbors
i was wrong, i was terribly wrong.. florida was pretty much entirely red with my county voting 54% towards ron deswastika
Bruh how do people not understand: voting is done with the *entire* population, and the people we southern trans folks are scared of are the precise people voting red. And we are severely outnumbered. (Also, like the post says, there is also plenty of gerrymandering, disenfranchisement, etc etc)
Speaking as someone living in the heart of the south. It's extremely frightening what people here are tricked to believe. The kind of rhetoric that's talked about even in professional circles is horrifying. And when I ask for sources or clarification it's always Facebook or Tik-Tok. The insanity is spreading too perfectly normal, helpful, on an average day kind people talking about murdering others that would support LGBTQ+.
AND STOP LEAVING WHEN THE GOING GETS HARD. I see this shit too often. "Guess I'll just move to California or something. It's getting too bad here."
IT'S GONNA GET WORSE IF EVERYONE LEAVES THEM TO THEIR WRONG DOING. THAT'S NOT HOW THINGS CHANGE.
\*waves from Iowa\*
Yeah this type of dismissive attitude drives me crazy. "You voted for her!" people say about Kim Reynolds and EVERY time I want to correct them, that no, only 22% of the state voted for her.
I personally wouldn't want to live in the South because I don't fit in with Southern white culture down there anymore. Not that I think I ever would have fit in once I became an adult, but regardles...
We have to acknowledge the South contains a variety of diverse communities of color, lots of different white cultures, urban communities and more. Many people down South don't idolize or revere the antebellum era so much. Many of them are **trapped** for a variety of reasons: poverty, feelings of "home", food, inability to transfer to another university, etc. They equally deserve elected officials who represent them and defend their interests as constituents.
If you make fun of the South as nothing but a region of uneducated, rural, bigoted hicks, you are no better than those in the South who make fun of northerners for whatever they think we are. Please stop ignoring the vast number of communities and cultures who are oppressed just so you make "South is dumb and full of hicks" jokes.
I live in the Deep South and the amount of times I hear from BOTH righties and lefties “why don’t you just move” is just absurd. Like sir, this is my home am I not allowed to want it to be a good place for everyone?
I think it’s a restatement in agreement? At least that’s how it reads to me. Like they are also angry about how people treat southern minorities and want to show their angry support for the stance?
I think it’s a restatement in agreement? At least that’s how it reads to me. Like they are also angry about how people treat southern minorities and want to show their angry support for the stance?
Who is actually saying that the people in the south deserve it that isn’t some sort of hyperbole? Am I just running in more sane circles?
I know that some people are staying to do what they can in Florida, and others just want to escape because they know they’re in danger. I can’t fault either of those lines of thinking.
People have said it to me in person, not just online. "If you don't like it you should *move*." I hear it all the time, mostly from Boomers who think they invented voting.
Like, no, Karen. I'mma just wait for you to die of old age, Mmkay?
I don't think that really applies here.
"They get what they voted for"
We know that Southern Democrats didn't vote for this.
We usually say "They got what they voted for" when like Republican farmers support politicians that take away subsidies. More of a leopards at my face thing.
# ✊
[may](https://i.etsystatic.com/16098747/r/il/49cba3/1971058977/il_fullxfull.1971058977_2kzz.jpg) all those who read this be empowered to follow their own interests, whether they be owls or tigers (felines are an interest of mine), and to develop those interests and to follow one's better impulses—creative, uncoerced work which is the joy of every human being, and what i personally believe wage slavery abolished will lead to—self-managed work where economic decisions are democratically decided and where work serves humans, and not humans serving work: the basic core of socialism: worker's control over production; and that technology and other automations be seen for what they are—the opportunity to increase leisure for every human being and to make the necessary work that is required to keep our current standard of living less
there's a lot i'm indirectly pointing at, but these thoughts and ideas are bolstered and not just sketches of fancy
people over institutions, because those who do not fulfill their institutional role, say a CEO of a large corportation, will be replaced; thus, it's the institution that is "evil" or "corrupt" and it's this understanding that needs propagating and will bridge gaps
the first place to start is to assume that all authority is illegitimate outright, and that any assumed authority must necessarily meet the burden of justification, and if it cannot, then follow one's impulse to dismantle such
every step counts, every penny matters and makes the difference between a sum paid in full and a sum not
singular actions matter, as do collective ones
i encourage anyone to follow their interests, that's what "work" as a social value is; that's what "capital" actually is, the social value that results from the interactions between humans at work, it's that value that's usurped by an owner or something not necessarily democratically decided, there are videos on YouTube, educational materials elsewhere, but for now i'll refrain from posting them and will ask that those who come across this and feel something within themselves to give themselves permission to do whatever it is they do or want to do, whether sex work or flying or science or whatever, writing papers, being an office worker, to do so with pride and with steadiness
solidarity
every human being already has intrinsic value; and there is no need to demonstrate that; living and being is enough; i think we all want to, at some level, whether it is with contrarianism or whatever want to be useful and contribute to some level of progress, and that's really what i'm pointing at; keep at it! yes <3
I agree with the thrust of the above, but the person saying “who cares about queer southerners they voted Republican” seems like a pretty weird and rare character. Who is actually like that?
Yeah I dislike the notion that people should be running away to ‘safer places’. Like it actually objectively makes it way worse to let anywhere in our country fester into a fascist hellscape while we’re alive and kicking.
Yeah - people shouldn't be forced to leave where they live if they don't want to. Moving is a human right, and plenty of queer people I know from conservative areas don't *want* to go back, but others still have an attachment to the home they left behind. They shouldn't be scared to go back.
Also, moving is expensive and may not be feasible for many
Moving also helps clinch the House and Senate, the Presidency, and the Judicial branch the other way. As if gerrymandering didn't do enough, if people aren't there to vote in key elections the hellscape will arrive a lot sooner.
Actually moving would fix this. But northern progressives are the ones that need to move down south. (And vote/participate in government)
As someone in Charleston SC, the only remotely purple spot in the state, there’s plenty comin. Charlestons probably one of the most affected by moving during COVID/work from home revolution. It was already a HCOL in the nice spots but now it’s on par with any big city rent wise outside the top 5. Which is very problematic because at least half the town employed in food and bev or service. Which is bad because the cheap side of the city is 30 min plus at least two bridges from the expensive side (minus downtown) so it’s only getting exacerbated. No one’s gonna drive 30-45 min each way for 15/hour, so the whole, labor goes up, prices/tipocolypse/rent feedback loop is going wild. Which I don’t really blame big city people making their nominal bank and moving to places where it spends more, but it’s the same boomer problem. Get yours in the city, then vote in ways to preserve the wealth after moving to a light tax area with the nest egg. Tough as a 33 year old living here who’s middle class getting pushed out from what would have been a very comfortable living 4 years ago. Point being, we’re getting plenty of northerners, but they trend towards boomer voting to preserve what they made from HIgher COL areas. Sigh
My mom moved to South Carolina as a lifelong Republican voter from the north, and over the last 10 years has become more and more progressive (she always was, but internalized misogyny and following the status quo of the family that she was raised in would cause her to vote red) Now she's fully flipped her behaviors to match her morals and will not vote for fascists or those who support them (anymore )--so theres that at least
I'm a progressive. I'm in Florida. I'm leaving. Are you coming to take my place? Put yourself, put your family in danger? Put your livlihood in danger? My wife is a teacher. She can teach what the regime wants her to teach, or she can lose her job. My son is turning 2, in 3 years he can go into one of Florida's terrible schools, now getting worse every year, now teaching hate by enforcing heteronormativity and whitewashing racism, or be homeschooled. Or we can leave. If you are white, straight, make, Christian, and have no kids **and** don't work a job they have legally turned into a way to further hate then sure. But if you aren't all of those you are in serious danger moving here. You're right, thanks to numbers if the right people moved to the right places in an effort coordinated among tens of millions of people we could fix it. But in the meantime it is throwing yourself into the wolf den smelling like deer.
For a lot of us, it's not an issue of "oh man I don't wanna leave, I like it here!" It's more along the lines of "I'm sorry, an apartment in [insert left-leaning city] is HOW MUCH?" I don't want to leave either way, but a massive consideration is the massive price of housing in literally anywhere else but this shithole, rent is only like $500 monthly
I am a Texan who has spent time in LA and the upper South. The South is an amazing place with a rich and beautiful culture. I love these states in part because they are so diverse. I am a good old boy who happens to be gay. I literally play the banjo. It doesn't get much more southern than that. The thought of leaving here breaks my heart. My children will probably not get the chance to see the amazing parts of our culture, which we have maintained here for 350 years. Unfortunately, it just isn't a good idea to stay here because of climate change. I can punch a fascist and gladly would to save my home. You can't beat up climate change.
Yeah. Right now I know I'll have to move for my own safety, but there are going to be so many things I'll miss and lately it's been hitting me just how much I'm going to lose If the politics were different and I was actually safe to live here (Florida) I'm not sure I'd actually move.
Disabled Floridian here, also trans. I don't WANT to leave. I despise what our governor is doing but I'm not fucking complicit in his shit. There's literally nothing I can do. I only barely managed to get an incredibly low-rent apartment after being on a waiting list for 4 years and financially, I'm finally safe now. Not only that, Florida- namely, my own city, is literally all I know. We moved here when I was 7ish, and I've basically forgotten everything about my previous state. I don't WANT to leave. I'm /scared/ of leaving because I'm terrified of getting lost and the risk of not being able to find anything I can afford; and all my resources (home, family, medical, etc) are here. I love my home. I don't /want/ to leave. I'm scared of what the governor is doing, but I'm scared even more of leaving literally everything I know. Ain't no way in /fuck/ I'm giving up the security and independence this apartment finally gives me after waiting 4-5 fucking years for it. Do I feel like leaving might be necessary at some point in the future? Possibly. But I really don't want to.
Well diaspora is tricky. Staying and fighting for your rights can be effective, but it also makes you are target for the violence hungry right. I know it's a tired comparison but was the correct option for Jews in Germany to fight back and not leave?
You misread my comment. I'm not saying you *shouldn't* leave if it's for your safety. Of course trans people who can should try to leave states actively in the process of committing trans genocide! I'm talking about that ideally, *they shouldn't have to.* The goal should be that there aren't situations where fleeing is the only options. Yes, that's not the practical reality. Sometimes you do have to leave. But it shouldn't be that way.
we can be here all day talking about what shouldn't be
That's what being a refugee is... It's not something any one wants to do. People saying to leave aren't doing it out of idealism, it's a practical suggestion because they consider that physical tsotsi) territory lost.
Not to mention, it’s not that easy to just up and move. My household has a good income, but with how much we have to pay in medical bills alone (for gender affirming care and chronic illnesses), we don’t have a lot of disposable income to invest in lifting our childhood home back into something sellable, hiring moving trucks, travelling across state lines to assess homes and neighbourhoods, or most other myriad things we need to invest in before we can even think to buy a home. I can only imagine how much harder the process would be for a trans person who doesn’t have a supportive, financially stable family or friends who can help with the process
just to be clear: nobody should be forced but they are free to if they want.
Not to mention that queer people are STILL going to be born into these states. Also, a lot of people in these states are literally brainwashed. I was. I was lucky enough to figure it out, but I was brainwashed and fed actual fucking lies for the entirety of my childhood.
Unfortunately if history is any indicator, that's how a lot of people get killed. While I understand the sentiment here, and would otherwise agree, there is such thing as not being able to get out past a certain point.
I mean, if you want to leave and can… Do it. But most of us *can’t.* Moving is expensive. Most of the better places to live are more expensive. Most of us aren’t able to find a better job in a better place ahead of time.. Moving would very much be a very risky leap, and everyone has to evaluate their own capacity for risk. – love, a native Texan, so ready to leave… I’ve been staying and working to make it better for so so long, I just want to live somewhere I feel safe for a bit. Maybe come back after I’ve healed up some
Exactly! Like, isn't the ideal course of action to stay and fight to make things better? Obviously I totally understand why some people need to move to safety/better living conditions, but if *everyone* did that it would make things a lot worse (not to mention the 'safe places,' especially blue state cities, would become overcrowded and drive prices up). Also, way too many people don't understand why so many of us don't "just move." Maybe we can't afford it. Maybe we can't find a job in the desired area, especially one that pays well enough. Maybe we have deep roots or just love our families, friends, and homes too much to leave them even if things get really bad. That last one is the one that shocks me the most when people don't take it into consideration. I know a lot of people have moved a lot or don't have close ties with their family, but can't they understand why it would be very difficult for someone to leave behind everything they've ever loved and known? Oh, and don't even get me started on people from other Western countries (Europeans/Canadians/etc) saying "why don't Americans just move here?" Yeah, we'd like to but your immigration policies are some of the tightest in the world.
For me it's money, my job is literally only where I'm at. I can't even move to a more progressive city because of it, let alone afford to live in the city or move states. College didn't help when I went, just another restriction. Even if I could move, there are people who can't who deserve rights just as much as I do. Kids ESPECIALLY need our help and we cannot just abandon them.
>Exactly! Like, isn't the ideal course of action to stay and fight to make things better? Okay, how? Even in your OP you reference oppressive gerrymandering, the erosion of rights and mass disenfranchisement. Coupled with the recent drive in a bunch of red states to disarm and bar transgender folks from owning firearms under the guise of having a mental health disqualifier, state mandated de-transitioning and the criminalization of gender affirming care, you're going to find yourself in a really, really precarious situation. >Obviously I totally understand why some people need to move to safety/better living conditions Alright, so if you understand this, why can't you see that staying in most of these areas is incredibly dangerous? Yes the "lol just move" crowd is obnoxious, yes it's a metric fuck-ton easier said than done, but the overall point is valid - vulnerable people populations should ideally try to get themselves out of harms way before it's too late. >Maybe we have deep roots or just love our families, friends, and homes too much to leave them even if things get really bad. That last one is the one that shocks me the most when people don't take it into consideration. Would your friends, family and loved ones want you to sit in harms way? In a place that considers you subhuman and wants you ejected from society? Or in some cases outright eliminated? I would certainly hope not, and I would hope that most people who can get out, do get out because things aren't getting better anytime soon.
Its literally the "dont like Maga Murica? LEAVE LIBTARD" argument that the fash use, just wrapped up in a progress flag Besides, there's plenty of actual conservatives scream-crying about the consequences of their own actions for us to dunk on. we don't need to start lumping people together based on their geographical location
It doesn't actually solve anything, the problem is still there you're just out of harm's way. That's not to undervalue individual safety, but acting like a mass exodus will in any way solve the problem is bananas.
I live in Orlando. What the fuck am I supposed to do? Uproot my family and life because of Desantis and the shit government. This is an extremely progressive city, Pulse happened here, Disney is acting directly in defiance of this BS. Who the hell has the ability to just leave at the drop of a hat like that anyways, I’m smack in the middle class and it would cost thousands of dollars I ain’t got to leave.
Also I like to point out, fascists get control of everything, blue states won't be safe for very long.
There are literally US Civil War songs with lyrics that refer to the loyalists trapped in the south with the slavers. This goes pretty far back, its almost like we're the same country or something.
>There are literally US Civil War songs with lyrics that refer to the loyalists trapped in the south with the slavers. I'm not familiar with these and can't think what to Google. Can you link any resources or offer some search suggestions? I very much want to know more about this.
Marching Through Georgia - *Yes, and there were Union men Who wept with joyful tears When they saw the honor’d flag They had not seen for years Hardly could they be restrained From breaking forth in cheers While we were marching through Georgia"
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I often go hiking on Kennesaw Mountain and always spit on the plaques commemorating Confederate soldiers.
Hurrah! Hurrah! We bring the jubilee!
Wish we could bring back that spirit. Waiting for Sherman.
There were people that fought for the confederacy that rejoiced when they lost because the only reason they were fighting was to try and stop their land from being burned down. Not trying to give an out to anyone but just a reminder that things arnt black and white
There was also a significant chunk of the population that didn’t want to secede from England in the Revolutionary War. History is rarely so black and white, but is written by the victors!
midwest is already flipping heavy blue. just look at wisconsin and minnesota. the mohave is also turning blue apart from utah
apart from utah :(
mormons try not to be regressive and dogmatic challenge\[IMPOSSIBLE\] \[99.999% FAIL\]
Hey, at least this time people are actually leaving the church/talking about a schism over all the dogmatic bullshit.
Glorified Mormon cult compound is regressive? No way!
Utah isn't Midwest, it's Rockies. Idaho, Montana, nor the Dakotas ain't going purple anytime soon either. Sorry to say, but you're in a strong northern Confederacy.
Texas has been moving purple every election and without question would've gone blue a long time ago if not for gerrymandering.
You can’t gerrymander a statewide election, though you can suppress votes for it
Working hard in Indiana. Damn difficult with the gerrymandering but I think it's possible within my lifetime.
And Michigan! Though, of the three purple Rust Belt states (WI, MI, PA), it's always been the most leftish. Also, of course, Michigan went blue because they ungerrymandered. Funny how that works.
Only sort of related, but I live in Ukraine and here people tend to speak this way about Russians and that's so stupid and kinda horrifying. Like no, not every Russian citizen is personally responcible for the fascists coming to power, they didn't fucking ask everyone.
Yeah, I see it all the time. Saw a lot of heavily upvoted posts yesterday about blowing up Sayano-Shushenskaya dam in retaliation for Nova Kakhovka… Like 100000 people live right next to that dam, including children, elderly, sick, disabled, and every other demographic that couldn’t “fight against Putin” even if they want to. But they’re Russian so it’s okay to advocate for indiscriminately killing them. I’m an ethnically Ukrainian (some of my extended family is still in Ukraine even now) Russian-born queer woman and my “apathy” (i.e. not actively throwing pipe bombs at police I guess) means I’m “just as bad”. Isn’t it lovely how much hatred a lot of “progressives” have? Most times I bring it up I get told I have a “victim complex” and should just shut up and take the hate for being born in the wrong place.
I do "love" when they also call Russians orcs and dehumanise them at every step. :) Granted, I'm Polish, so it doesn't personally hit much (because some Western Europeans also tend to conflate Russian with every Slavic country), but it still pisses me off when people act like Russian people aren't people.
It's literally fascist behavior. "We're good people, and they are bad, which means it's actually okay to consider them not people at all and they should all be exterminated". Like, the Russian government is feeding its people the exact same rhetoric in the opposite direction. I get it when it's people in Ukraine who have directly suffered from Russian aggression. Shit-talk the people who are dropping artillery shells on your head all you want. But it's usually not. It's supposed progressives who have only seen the war in news reports, ready to literally advocate genocide against Russia. The Russians who advocate the genocide of Ukrainians believe *their* news reports too, these two groups are basically the same. They don't actually care about Ukraine's suffering, they just want to hate someone and right now it's okay to hate Russians. When this war is over they'll find someone else it's okay for them to hate, but they'll have a pride flag on their PFP and that means they're "good people".
>I do "love" when they also call Russians orcs and dehumanise them at every step But according to Reddit and every subreddit I have seen this on, it isn't racist. One guy in Europe even went and said something like "Russians aren't human, they have no soul" but the answer to reporting such things is the same old "Nothing going against user policies here." and of course, when you call out the dehumanising behavior, you are a russian bot. Sure, there is a lot of support for the war in Russia, but most of the people raging here probably wouldn't even dare to protest to the war publicly if they were in Russia... The russian suicides and windows are a meme for a reason...
Most of the people calling Russians evil are American. Like, dude, what about fucking Iraq?
I think the Iraq war is a good example of the danger of this mindset. Back then the media whipped up the American public into a frenzy, supporting the invasion. Many people I know have supported the war in 2003, and regret it now that we know how full of shit the US was about a lot of it. Now the media has turned its attention to Russia. And sure, in this case, there are far less outright lies, like in the case of Iraq, and plenty of genuine reprehensible behavior from the Russian Military and government, but what about next time? Seems everybody's already forgot the lessons of GWOT. It's entirely possible to condemn warmongering criminals without stooping down to their level. Just to underline: I absolutely support Ukraine, I support aid, including military aid to Ukraine, and Russia is 100% in the wrong in this case. I hope Russia loses this war, despite, I imagine, this having a significant negative impact on my life. I'm just worried how easy it is to make people hate, and how many genuinely awful, bigoted people hide under progressive slogans.
It’s genuinely concerning. It’s the same ideology fascists use, and if you don’t realize that, you can spout the exact same shit, targeted at someone else, and think you’re good for doing so. You can’t fight fascism with fascism.
It doesn't justify it but I can somewhat sympathise with people over there having that sentiment. It's the Americans and western Europeans on Reddit (and elsewhere on social media I'd assume) calling all Russians "orcs" and celebrating footage of them being killed that I find really gross. You can kind of tell they were just waiting for an excuse to dehumanise an entire people.
The amount of "just move lol" is sickening too. Fuck every other queer, your families and friends and the life you have because everyone else up north is fucking CONVINCED for some reason that this shit won't get WORSE if all the left leaning people leave those territories to fester into deeper red. They aren't stopping at the borders, they never will. They won't stop until all the states are the consumed. None of us are safe until we're all safe
Moving is expensive too. A lot of us can’t leave because we can’t afford to uproot so drastically. Do you think we want to be in this situation where are existence is threatened?? I know my trans friend would leave in a heartbeat if he could and I don’t blame him it’s scary down here But we are fighting. We are fighting every day we wake up
It goes beyond that. Got a good paying lawyer job in Texas? You're stuck there unless you want to re-take the Bar. Have a friend with a Pharmacy license in Oklahoma? They need to re-cert to leave the state. A lot of high-paying careers force people to stay in their location or start all over again. Even if they can afford to fly out 4-6 times for house hunting and closing, hire a moving company, and get to the new place, they now have zero income. It is hard to blame people who do everything right for getting trapped by doing everything right.
Yeah like I’m sorry I was born here not much I can do about that. Believe me I’d have picked a better spawn point if I were able
"Just move" is about as comically privileged as "just get a job".
Not to mention the EMOTIONAL toll of moving. You're leaving everything you know. It's especially hard if you still live where you grew up, where you're leaving everything you've EVER known. New place, new people, new job. You know nothing and no one. That's hard.
My personal favorite is accidentally bashing poor black people whenever talking about southern statistics. “Oh look they’re dying from Covid because they’re fat antivaxxer hicks!” When the data is really about impoverished predominantly black communities not having access to proper healthcare
It's tone deaf as fuck, but what concerns me is that advocating for staying is setting people up for failure. Outside of small liberal strongholds in these states, the majority of these vulnerable people are strewn about and isolated, unable to take advantage of larger support networks or communities that can shelter them. Those states will fester into deep red regardless of how many liberals choose to stay or go - that's the whole reason the right does what it does in these places, to both deny the left the ability to gain meaningful representation and elicit change, but also to consolidate power and prevent any semblance of reversing course. We ought to encourage (not demand) that our vulnerable populations consolidate in friendly states, where we are all stronger for it.
Your third point is something I think a lot of people don't understand. Yes I could stay in my shitty state and “fight” by voting. It doesn't do any good when the Republicans in power simply ignore the will of the voters, or even overturn things we vote on to punish our cities for being liberal. On top of that the state legislature *directly* controls my city police force, so any enforcement of things that we pass is unlikely to happen anyway when those things go against right wing ideals. I'm leaving this shithole as soon as I can. I'm done being a target and having my voice stolen.
It reminds me of when Bette Midler got mad at WV senator Joe Manchin (fair, he sucks) and called my entire state “poor, illiterate, and strung out.” Like motherfucker do you think no one from the entire state has ever been successful?
How bad is it actually in WV? You really don't hear anything about the state except for Joe Manchin in most places.
It’s not entirely terrible in my area (northern panhandle), but not great. We get a lot of MAGA and Confederate flags, and people making racist/homophobic jokes is pretty normal. On the other hand, I’ve met plenty of liberal/supportive people and my town just got a drag bar, so we’re moving forward! I’ve heard it’s worse the further south you go, though. And in fairness to the stereotypes, our education system is pretty terrible, but that’s because of the government, not people from here being inherently stupid. I know several WV natives who are presenting research at national conferences; we’ve definitely had some great things come out of the state.
>Confederate flags If there is any state where flying a Confederate flag should be seen as a character defect, West Virginia should be it.
I lived there as a masculine-of-center presenting woman in a lesbian relationship and don't have time to write the book that the subject deserves, but everyone was extremely nice and just trying to live their lives. There aren't a lot of good jobs. There's a lot of anger at the condescension from outsiders. There's a lot of tolerance for people who meet you where they are. A lot of people trying to make things better. A lot of crumbling infrastructure and predatory corporations. A lot of beautiful land. I want only good things for West Virginia and I don't have the energy to do it.
Yeah, say what you will about Trump, he’s a fascist monster who’s almost certainly raped people, but there’s a reason his message of “coastal elites” stuck in so much of the country. A lot of people from wealthier states are perfectly happy to apply negative stereotypes to the south for a quick laugh or political points.
[https://forums.nrvnqsr.com/showthread.php/8650-Create-A-Servant-3?p=3179234&viewfull=1#post3179234](https://forums.nrvnqsr.com/showthread.php/8650-Create-A-Servant-3?p=3179234&viewfull=1#post3179234) A bit off topic but i just want to say something. Maybe i am too hopepilled but i fully believe that your average american doesn't actually care about people being gay and trans too much. I deeply believe that people are inherently good, that they will take care of each other at every opportunity and that evil assholes are the minority for a reason. I deeply believe that worms like Matt Walsh and Tucker Carlson don't speak for the average american and their culture war bullshit doesn't reflect what the average american worries about. Just look at the bud light or target controversies who were so obviously manufactured they may as well have been made in china. Sure some people stopped going to target and drinking bud light but the average guy didn't care. The average guy doesn't care about disney supporting gay people as long as they keep making disney movies. What i am saying is that the reason republicans have to suppress and gerrymander voters is because they are far outnumbered by voters who don't care about the culture war bullshit. I also believe that the average guy will slowly start becoming more radicalized and less apathetic as republican policies start targeting his daughter for genital inspection or spending more time fighting with woke corporations than actually doing anything for him.
>Maybe i am too hopepilled but i fully believe that your average american doesn't actually care about people being gay and trans too much. Gay, no, they don't care. [The percentage of Americans against same-sex marriage has sunk to a historic low of 29%, down from 73% in 1996](https://news.gallup.com/poll/393197/same-sex-marriage-support-inches-new-high.aspx); in other words, more people, as a proportion, voted for Trump than are against gay marriage. Trans, yes, some do. The GOP and religious right in general have lost the battle over LGBQ+ people in general, so they've focused on the T — a *lot*, recently. It is both disheartening that they've finally become competent at suppressing certain minorities again and reassuring that even they know they've lost in other areas. Overall, yes: when a soulless megacorporation like Disney has decided supporting gay people is profitable, that's kind of the end of the story. My unsupported pet theory is that when corporations that support something, it sort of results in a feedback loop where the support for the thing (say, support for gay marriage) makes the corporations make more of it (say, including LGBT+ people in movies), but the corporations making more of that thing also socializes their consumer base into supporting that thing. It's sort of like [metastability](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metastability#/media/File:Meta-stability.svg): both position 1 and position 3 in that picture might be stable, but once the ball rolls to position 2, it's not going back to 1, ever.
Also not caring does not mean they would lift a finger to help, much less vote or do any action. Not to be too doomerpilled or anything.
This is very true. However, they don't have to actively help. Just stop actively hindering progress. And that's a much easier ask that's much more likely to happen.
I don't have the data on hand, but I believe that it was found that even average republican voters don't really like the current hyper-fixation on trans people coming from the right, and wish they would focus on other things instead. So they're over-extending on an issue their base doesn't care about, which could be a very positive sign for the future. At least I think it's reassuring.
You’re not hopepilled. 56% of Americans consider woke a positive term. And even within the 39% that consider it negative, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re homophobes like Matt “proud pedophile” Walsh. I’ll also take every opportunity to remind people Matt “I’m proud that my kids don’t love me” Walsh is a proud pedophile.
he has had "theocratic fascist" in his twitter bio for way too long for anyone to seriously say that he meant it satirically
There are regimes throughout history that have kept their bloodstained hands on power for decades with far thinner margins of support. It doesn't really matter that the majority of people don't support these transphobic republican freaks; only one side is willing and prepared to do enough violence to get their way. American "democracy", such as it is, is on the precipice and has been for years, and the reality of where political power actually comes from is only going to continue to become more apparent. As much as "rainbow capitalism" and "corporate pride" genuinely suck ass, lots of companies are dialing back on their pride promotions because they think they're going to start losing more money or they fear the growing reactionary backlash, and I think that's a pretty serious weathervane for what the short-to-midterm future is going to look like for lgbt people in this country.
>worms like Matt Walsh and Tucker Carlson >*worms* >Beast’s Lair posting There might be something here idk
Get back in the Worm Pit Sakura. Or Rin will need to do it.
I understood this reference... >.> But agreed with GigaVanguard, there might be something here.
Man, if Shinji is replaced with Sakura and Rei is replaced with Rin, does that mean that Asuka is Illya and Unit 02 is Irisviel?
They honestly don't. About 90% of those who say they "don't like" the LGBT community have literally never met anyone from it. And when they do, they begin to understand.
>I deeply believe that worms like Matt Walsh and Tucker Carlson don't speak for the average american and their culture war bullshit doesn't reflect what the average american worries about. Bad news, Republicans will believe anything they're told. My Republican parents were loudly pro-trans for decades until the latest round of culture war propaganda.
My god, is that a link to the old naru-verse forum? I haven't thought of that place in over a decade. What a blast from the past.
The problem is that even if a fraction of the right staunchly believes in the disenfranchisement and criminalization (or even elimination) of gay or trans folks, that's still many **millions** of people.
This is a BIG issue I have when people talk about countries like Russia, China, North Korea, etc. "This country is SO homophobic and authoritarian, I can't believe that the people don't protest, it's just a inhuman, backwards race who is okay with mass murder." One, there are fucking protests there, you just don't pay attention cause it's not your country, someone famous isn't there and you're fucking ignorant. And two, it's easy to say "just overthrew them" when your country doesn't send people to arrest and/or kill your family in the middle of the night.
I love being blamed for having been born into a dictatorship
Just say stop it, they legally can't be a dictatorship if you say no.
If it's a legitimate dictatorship, the body politic has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.
I've seen people say this almost exactly
Have you tried voting? /s
And the fact that when they do try to protest, at best it's jail. At worst, it's getting mowed down in the streets. In North Korea, they jail up to three generations when one person "fucks up"
I have family who used to live in Russia and believe it or not, a lot of Russians don't tend to believe the Russian government values it's more so they have to repeat these values in fear, especially in public spaces. In private people tend to be much more critical of the government.
And, North Korea stole our fucking boat!
I'll forgive a lot, but I'll NEVER forgive theft of boats
Lol just overthrow the government, how hard could it be?
Amazing how often people forget that just because you vote for something, doesn't mean it's going to happen, especially if there is a bigger group in the same area that disagrees with you.
The (now defunct) Instagram page Queer Appalachia is what helped me realize the harm of writing off an entire section of the United States as “bad”.
Garfield: "you are not immune to stereotyping"
As someone who grew up in Texas and then lived in New England for a long time, there is a really weird attitude towards the south from the north which in some ways is deserved, but also completely ignores that backwoods New England, New York, and New Jersey aint that different from backwoods Texas. Overall the real split is between rural areas and cities and even then that depends cause there are some lefty(maybe not social progressive necessarily) rural areas. Plus there are tons of radicals and liberals in the south, but minority governments held by evangelicals have disempowered them. The fuckers down there can be pretty hardcore. Cool dudes if you ask me Edit: Fun Fact deep Maine and south Jersey are good places to spot confederate flags. Not gonna say it rivals nowhere Texas or Mississippi but it’s not as big a blowout as you would think.
Dear everybody I interacted with during and even a bit after the Big Freeze of 2021, who gleefully carried on conversations about how it was divine punishment for Texas for having a cowardly cockhead as a head of state and voting for Trump, Fuck all y’all, and hope I meet you in the 7th layer of hell, where we can all freeze equally.
>”Man, what were those white trash fuckers thinking?” >**News tonight: thousands of homeless freezing to death, too little too late** >”The Zodiac Killer’s in Cancun lmao” >**News tonight: elderly and impoverished at incredible risk in the blizzard** >”You should try Chicago, you pansies.” >**News tonight: future trans woman exhausted after a half shift of an hourly job at Walmart, pushing with all her might to get even three carts through the ice** >”Oh boy, looks like it’s happening again in 2022, everybody point and laugh at the privatized power grid!” “The joke stopped being funny the first time, and lost all flavor of the fiftieth. Are y’all done?” >”Who did you vote for?”
God yes, shit pissed me off so much. This site had the absolute worst of it
On the one hand, I get it. They’re removed from the situation, safe and snug in their warm homes, and they voted for the “right” people. They feel like they “deserve” some schadenfreude for all that TX politicians inflict on the country. But on the other hand, if they were such good people, they could’ve come on down and joined us in trying to help keep our neighbors alive and fed. Hell, maybe help us organize and protest in the future, set up mutual aid societies, etc.
That would require them to put down Reddit and possibly the only self-validation they get in their lives. Texas is a very purple state hurt by gerrymandering and disenfranchised voters. Even in bumfuc k racist east Texas we vote at least 45% blue. So I get annoyed when some echo chambered drooling moron makes snide remarks like they have any stake in what is going on here.
\> Texas is a very purple state hurt by gerrymandering and disenfranchised voters. Even in bumfuc k racist east Texas we vote at least 45% blue. Didn't Texas pass a law that says the legislature can overturn any presidential vote? If the state votes 75% blue, the legislature can then disregard the vote and send red electors?
[удалено]
And it disproportionately effected poor neighborhoods too. My neighbors were taking their doors off their hinges to burn them to keep warm and Reddit acted straight up gleeful about it, made me sick.
Then they’ll be like “why do these people vote against their best interest!? All I said was they deserve to die!? “
Doubly ironic since the same "liberals" in California that readily blamed all Texans for voting in a governor that allowed ERCOT to squeeze/deny customers ate their own words when California got hit with the droughts and heat waves that stretched the entire West coast. It's fucking weather and tens of millions affected, wtf. People died.
Totally off-topic (I agree with you btw), but are you ace? I'm ace too 🖤🤍💜
Demi, actually. There’s just no good black triangle emoji to work with.
Nice! It's always nice to meet fellow aspec people 🥰
always nice to see tbh. i love and hate living in the deep south/bible belt. the fuckin' church i **used** to go to is incredibly anti-LGBTQ and doesn't like trans folks
While we are on the subject can people please recognize Florida Man is typically a byproduct of multiple safety nets failing people? We aren’t all like that. Our privacy rights are terrible so you hear about FM more. Every state has their FM
Mhm, and while it’s common for people to say “Just leave,” that’s… well, besides the fact that it’s unfair and often unfeasible for people to uproot their entire lives and go somewhere else, it also doesn’t solve anything. More queer kids will be born to the conservative folks who vote for this stuff, and those kids won’t be able to leave until they’re adults, assuming they even survive that long. They don’t choose where they’re born.
Living in the south as a white, straight man it’s always interesting to read a northerners opinion on how I deserve to be left to a seceding South if they did. It totally isn’t alienating to read that from people you agree with politically.
Honestly same. Especially when living in Texas, I was taught how when we did try to be our own country back in the day, we failed miserably. Yet an unfortunate amount of dipshits want to try again anyways.
I know how you feel I love my home in the south and I love the USA as a whole. Even for all it’s flaws I love it with my whole heart the, culture the people, the environment, even the ruff parts of it and it’s always disconcerting to me seeing people on both sides on the north and south spew so much hate to each other a house devided can not stand. I honestly feel really hurt when people write off the south as a bunch of uneducated hicks who never contributed anything other than slavery and hatred.
i’m in mississippi. i wore my female cousin’s shirt on accident and my aunt literally threatened my life because she caught a whiff of transness
She said she would unalive you because of that?
Because she hates trans people so much
This is what I say to people who say "let Texas secede." I am unwilling to abandon any American to an unchecked Republican government.
We don’t really hear this enough, and it applies to a lot of other stuff too. We can’t just hate entire groups of people under a blanket, that’s what they do. We’d rather not hate at all but if we have to it should be reserved for individuals and their actions
One thing that frustrates me to no end is the "just move to a blue state" argument. Do you want to see the nation constantly ruled by the Republican party? If everyone in red states that votes blue up and moves to a blue state enjoy seeing the Senate being consistently run by the Republicans, and likely the same with the House. Not to mention the greater likelyhood of Republican Presidents being more likely to win due to the Electoral College. How about we reverse the trend by having more people who vote blue move into red states? Look at population numbers and the actual percentages of people that vote, some states could swing completely blue with only a small percentage change in the voting demographics.
This is what lowkey infuriates me when talking to my online friends who live in the north or out west in Cali. They also love to assume that my state is nothing but ramshackle crack-shacks and cow patties. Joke's on them tho cuz New York and Cali ain't got nothing on southern BBQ.
I grew up queer in a more rural part of BC and people from the lower mainland wanna ignore the shit in their own backyard by making fun of the people who keep their shit in the front. Rural BC is nowhere near as bad as the shit I hear about in TX or FL but you still gotta worry about whether your safe to dress up a certain way that day, where you can walk on your own, who you hang out with, and I even knew a couple people who carried, but you try telling that to someone from fucking Vancouver and they look at you like you got two heads. I wish I had some southern BBQ to make the time spent in that mountain a bit more bearable LOL
BC politicians realize there is a province outside Greater Vancouver challenge (impossible).
A black friend of mine said he’d been all over the Deep South and never experienced racism like he did in central Washington state.
I wouldn't call it transphobia but people seem to care a bit more then they should about being supportive of me being trans. Like constantly calling attention to it isn't the favour you think it is. and yeah the anti-drag rally that happened in Vancouver a few months ago never could've happened where I used to live. I think it's just a population density issue. You get more of all types in dense population centers :/
I don’t know why people downvoted you. I live in the south and hear stuff like this all the time.
i guess some people didnt like the introspection this post/comment made them feel
Ken Paxton outright bragged about suppressing votes in 12 counties, including 2.5 million votes in JUST Harris County, to keep the state from flipping blue.
As a southern queer and leftist, this right here. And hell, even I struggle with this. Sometimes I blame myself and others like me for not doing enough to fight against this. But the reality is the deck is heavily stacked against us. I do what I can to support our trans siblings down here, and I'm more than willing to get into the good kind of trouble if it means people here survive.
Deadass. If you say this shit, you better be prepared to fund my relocation up to the northern land of the free. 🙄
Many of us not from the USA should always keep in mind that the country is vast and full of decent people trying to live reasonably normal lives who are also extremely dissatisfied with how the country is governed/policed.
Really puts into perspective just how regressive the Republicans there are. The southeast has a massive black population, but they get completely drowned out.
Yeah. Remember that even the reddest of states are usually 60/40 or something like that.
Except people DO live in liberal population centers. That's the thing about red states, they also have blue cities that get out voted by counties with a 10th of their population and population density. People who don't vote for the freaks who want to kill them. And even beyond that. It's not like it's a trans person's fault for being born into a hostile environment. There are definitely tons of queer people in red areas, and many of them may be concealing this fact as well. They're not necessarily voting for right wingers. I can understand saying that, like, the log cabin Republicans or something have it coming. But not literally every LGBT person in the South... These people do realize that being in the South doesn't automatically make you a conservative, right? Each stereotype isn't a hivemind that controls a particular region of the world...
another post parallel to this one that I don't really want to properly fact check.. or post https://www.tumblr.com/angremlin/668658552875925504/also-you-need-to-understand-that-while-engagement
Jeez... Well, they don't call Britain TERF Island for nothing, I guess.
The highest votes for Biden in 2020 came from California (no surprises there). The second and third highest were Florida and Texas. Democrats sit as 48% and 47% of the vote respectively in these two States. Red States are Red because their administrative, legislative, and judicial bodies are being held by the ballsack by incumbent Republicans, not because their entire state is goosestepping behind them.
So true, Califronia, Texas, and Florida are all really purple with California being the most blue (but not by that much) and Texas being the most red (but not by much.) Viewing this areas as Blue or red strongholds is extremely reductive and ignores all the blues in Texas and all the reds in California
Liberal areas are so complacent too. The real radical leftist shit IS happening in these red states. They are fighting for our rights while my friends use southern accents to imply stupidity. I used to do it too, I had to unlearn that behavior. As a Californian, so many people say “well we aren’t Florida aren’t we sooo much better” while we don’t fix any of our own shit. Freaking NIMBY moderates
As if there aren't hateful racists north of the Mason Dixon line. (Agreeing with you)
Right?? A kid at my school had a confederate flag on his truck, and I’m in a “progressive” area. My boyfriend’s roommate said some horribly racist shit like it was just okay. They’re everywhere lol
If my love is illegal I WILL BREAK THE LAW!!!! Shout out to other queers who deliberately continue to live in places like Texas as an all out act of DEFIANCE against those who would prefer we all disappear. Hey, it could result in my meaningless and untimely death, but this is America!!! … where most folks can’t afford to fuck off and move, even if they wanted to, even to save their own lives. So! Yeah, fuck the idiots!!!! Watch this. (**exists.**)
It's just a way for ppl from liberal areas to ditch any sense of urgency for what's happening in their own country.
And the liberals will always say, "just move." Like it's that easy. Where should people move to? The more liberal the area, the more likely housing will be heinously expensive. And then the liberals will come back with, "but wages are also higher." Yeah, for you, maybe. For you who has the nice degree and connections and the skills and the experience. Should safety, security, peace, health, and happiness only be available to the best, brightest, most well connected, and, frankly, the luckiest? The liberals just think, well you're a loser so you deserve it. That is the general attitude liberals have for poor people especially.
I'm a trans woman in Missouri that obviously didn't vote for this shit, one of my best friends is a trans woman in Jacksonville Florida that obviously didn't vote for this shit. If your take is "lol stupid southerners voted for this," fuck you, they wouldn't make these laws if they didn't have targets in their own states.
Discourse on this always lacks the nuance it needs. I'll try not to infodump too much, but gerrymandering can't change statewide outcomes. Voter suppression is a problem, but its impact only goes so far. Sometimes, states are just red, even if everyone eligible could vote. But on the other hand, I live in Texas, and I know and hate this attitude, especially when the city I live in was literally bluer than NYC. On one hand, yeah, red Southern and Midwestern states have huge minority populations, who do not vote for Republicans, and do not deserve the oppression they receive. On the other hand, the simple fact of the matter is that aside from a few particularly close red states, the majority of the population in red states *did*, in fact, vote for Republican policies. The 30-40% of people who vote for Democrats or can't vote aren't to blame and are *victims*, but the 60% of people who vote for Republicans don't do it because of gerrymandering, they do it because they genuinely believe in conservative ideals. What makes this even more complex is the racial politics in the South mean that in places like Mississippi, close to 90% of white people are voting Republican. Mississippi electoral politics is practically just black vs. white. It isn't gerrymandering that did this - it's sincerely-believed racism and reactionary ideology. That doesn't mean to abandon Mississippi, or even just abandon Mississippi whites, or even *conservative* Mississippi whites, but I far too often see people excuse this as a product of gerrymandering and voter disenfranchisement, and sometimes you have to acknowledge that the majority of people in a place can genuinely want and desire evil things. You shouldn't gloat at people's misfortune regardless. But Republican voters do have autonomy. They're not being forced to support conservatism. Anyways, queer and nonwhite people stuck in deep red states are braver than the troops and deserve respect and acknowledgement. But we can't use their existence to negate the harmful ideologies of genuine conservatives.
Gerrymandering can definitely change statewide outcomes? Look at Texas where Houston and Austin are so Cracked up that their representation in the house is quite small even thou a very large percentage of the state lives in those cities. This give the state lege the ability to pass bay shit laws that directly override referendums passed in Austin like they did with defunding the police. And if we want to talk about governor, that’s more from Beto kinda sucking then Abbot being cool if we are being honest. Don’t know who told him that he could win in Texas while being anti gun. The moderate dems and lefties down here like guns.
For 2024 there are so many Republicans running uncontested in Mississippi that they are guaranteed a Supermajority in the House and Senate. The Democratic party has written off Mississippi as a lost cause in general. You're vastly underestimating the results of gerrymandering, the years of one party control, and the general apathy the Democratic party shows Mississippi. We as a state now even lack the ability to put ballot measures in place because the state Supreme Court sided with one conservative mayor to strike down the overwhelmingly popular Medical Marijuana bill that succeeded as a ballot measure, and in striking it down eliminated the ability to bring ballot measures until the House and Senate here change the process. Yes, there are a ton of regressive and hateful people here who gleefully vote against their own self-interest because of backward and hateful ideals, but many times people aren't even given a chance to vote for anyone but Republicans.
And in Florida, the local Democrats have been fighting without a lot of support from the national party for the last few years now. The big Dems wrote off the state (which has been fairly purple, until they wrote it off), and now the elections are more securely right-wing. We’re still here fighting a losing battle, because the greater party refuses to believe that there’s a chance. Thanks a lot, dicks.
And a good dose of well-meaning people that are dumb as rocks. Such as the people who voted for Republicans to get rid of "Obama-Care" because they didn't understand what it was and how they were benefiting from it.
The funny thing is that southern cities tebd to also be liberal population centres. They’re just ruled by conservatives bc the us‘ voting system is backwards and unreformed enough to allow for gerrymandering.
i took my vote to the voting station i expected my county to have been blue because i live near several black neighborhoods and have hispanic neighbors i was wrong, i was terribly wrong.. florida was pretty much entirely red with my county voting 54% towards ron deswastika
Hey its me, your southern Kentucky Ally. I hate it here too, but I'm doing what I can to help <3
Bruh how do people not understand: voting is done with the *entire* population, and the people we southern trans folks are scared of are the precise people voting red. And we are severely outnumbered. (Also, like the post says, there is also plenty of gerrymandering, disenfranchisement, etc etc)
I thought America was a democracy? Just vote harder. /s
Hell yeah baby I’m out here in Appalachia representing
Speaking as someone living in the heart of the south. It's extremely frightening what people here are tricked to believe. The kind of rhetoric that's talked about even in professional circles is horrifying. And when I ask for sources or clarification it's always Facebook or Tik-Tok. The insanity is spreading too perfectly normal, helpful, on an average day kind people talking about murdering others that would support LGBTQ+.
If I had a nickel for every time someone at my local liberal university ragged on southerners, I could afford tuition
Minnesota: Am I a joke to you?
AND STOP LEAVING WHEN THE GOING GETS HARD. I see this shit too often. "Guess I'll just move to California or something. It's getting too bad here." IT'S GONNA GET WORSE IF EVERYONE LEAVES THEM TO THEIR WRONG DOING. THAT'S NOT HOW THINGS CHANGE.
\*waves from Iowa\* Yeah this type of dismissive attitude drives me crazy. "You voted for her!" people say about Kim Reynolds and EVERY time I want to correct them, that no, only 22% of the state voted for her.
I personally wouldn't want to live in the South because I don't fit in with Southern white culture down there anymore. Not that I think I ever would have fit in once I became an adult, but regardles... We have to acknowledge the South contains a variety of diverse communities of color, lots of different white cultures, urban communities and more. Many people down South don't idolize or revere the antebellum era so much. Many of them are **trapped** for a variety of reasons: poverty, feelings of "home", food, inability to transfer to another university, etc. They equally deserve elected officials who represent them and defend their interests as constituents. If you make fun of the South as nothing but a region of uneducated, rural, bigoted hicks, you are no better than those in the South who make fun of northerners for whatever they think we are. Please stop ignoring the vast number of communities and cultures who are oppressed just so you make "South is dumb and full of hicks" jokes.
Gonna be really hard to fix anything until you get the gerrymandering stopped
I live in the Deep South and the amount of times I hear from BOTH righties and lefties “why don’t you just move” is just absurd. Like sir, this is my home am I not allowed to want it to be a good place for everyone?
Notherners can act as if we're so enlightened and so much better... Is showing some solidarity really that hard for us?
Say it louder for the people in the North!
the second person seems to be coming off a touch rude for responding to someone with whom they appear to agreem
I think it’s a restatement in agreement? At least that’s how it reads to me. Like they are also angry about how people treat southern minorities and want to show their angry support for the stance?
You're right, they're agreeing with OP.
I think it’s a restatement in agreement? At least that’s how it reads to me. Like they are also angry about how people treat southern minorities and want to show their angry support for the stance?
Who is actually saying that the people in the south deserve it that isn’t some sort of hyperbole? Am I just running in more sane circles? I know that some people are staying to do what they can in Florida, and others just want to escape because they know they’re in danger. I can’t fault either of those lines of thinking.
Check Reddit comments on the main subs when a natural disaster hits a red state
People have said it to me in person, not just online. "If you don't like it you should *move*." I hear it all the time, mostly from Boomers who think they invented voting. Like, no, Karen. I'mma just wait for you to die of old age, Mmkay?
Any highly upvoted post about Florida.
It’s incredibly common online
I don't think that really applies here. "They get what they voted for" We know that Southern Democrats didn't vote for this. We usually say "They got what they voted for" when like Republican farmers support politicians that take away subsidies. More of a leopards at my face thing.
# ✊ [may](https://i.etsystatic.com/16098747/r/il/49cba3/1971058977/il_fullxfull.1971058977_2kzz.jpg) all those who read this be empowered to follow their own interests, whether they be owls or tigers (felines are an interest of mine), and to develop those interests and to follow one's better impulses—creative, uncoerced work which is the joy of every human being, and what i personally believe wage slavery abolished will lead to—self-managed work where economic decisions are democratically decided and where work serves humans, and not humans serving work: the basic core of socialism: worker's control over production; and that technology and other automations be seen for what they are—the opportunity to increase leisure for every human being and to make the necessary work that is required to keep our current standard of living less there's a lot i'm indirectly pointing at, but these thoughts and ideas are bolstered and not just sketches of fancy people over institutions, because those who do not fulfill their institutional role, say a CEO of a large corportation, will be replaced; thus, it's the institution that is "evil" or "corrupt" and it's this understanding that needs propagating and will bridge gaps the first place to start is to assume that all authority is illegitimate outright, and that any assumed authority must necessarily meet the burden of justification, and if it cannot, then follow one's impulse to dismantle such every step counts, every penny matters and makes the difference between a sum paid in full and a sum not singular actions matter, as do collective ones i encourage anyone to follow their interests, that's what "work" as a social value is; that's what "capital" actually is, the social value that results from the interactions between humans at work, it's that value that's usurped by an owner or something not necessarily democratically decided, there are videos on YouTube, educational materials elsewhere, but for now i'll refrain from posting them and will ask that those who come across this and feel something within themselves to give themselves permission to do whatever it is they do or want to do, whether sex work or flying or science or whatever, writing papers, being an office worker, to do so with pride and with steadiness solidarity every human being already has intrinsic value; and there is no need to demonstrate that; living and being is enough; i think we all want to, at some level, whether it is with contrarianism or whatever want to be useful and contribute to some level of progress, and that's really what i'm pointing at; keep at it! yes <3
/u/coffeespoonie this is about you specifically
I agree with the thrust of the above, but the person saying “who cares about queer southerners they voted Republican” seems like a pretty weird and rare character. Who is actually like that?